McLaren Racing CEO Zak Brown has described the Hungarian Grand Prix as a race that “was as close to perfect as you can get,” after Lando Norris secured his fifth victory of the season, followed by Oscar Piastri in P2. The race win marked McLaren’s 200th Grand Prix victory.
Brown lauded the team for its flawless pit stops, commendable race strategy, and some hard yet clean racing between the two McLaren drivers in the final laps of the race at the Hungaroring.
Charles Leclerc started the race on pole position and maintained a strong lead. However, Norris’s one-stop strategy took away Leclerc’s lead when he pitted the second time. Soon after, the Ferrari driver’s pace dropped significantly due to a problem with his SF-25’s chassis.
Despite starting from P3 and cruising with hard tires older than 30 laps, Norris maintained consistent lap times. However, Piastri’s new set of hard compounds in the last leg of the race helped him cover the eight-odd-second gap to Norris. McLaren had given both its drivers the green signal to contend for the race win, but the instructions were clear that the fight had to be clean.
Piastri pushed as hard as he could in the last five laps, maintaining a gap of around half a second to Norris, who left no room for Piastri to pass. Eventually, Norris crossed the finish line first and closed the gap to his championship leader teammate to just 9 points.
Speaking on the race that will stay on the minds of many, especially with the onset of the summer break, Brown stated that there could be no other way to end the first half of the 2025 season. He told Sky Sports F1:
“Everyone will sleep well tonight – great way to go into the summer break. You’re never perfect in a race but I think that was as close to perfect as you can get.
“The drivers were awesome, pit stops amazing, strategy was great to get Lando up there, Oscar drove brilliantly. I couldn’t be prouder of this racing team.
“All under control. I had some good chats with Andrea [Stella] during the race, it was very exciting. It was a great Grand Prix.
“With Lando’s first lap, we weren’t planning a one-stop strategy, we didn’t know if we could but then it got to a point where let’s try. Knew it would come down to the last five laps there and good to see them race very hard, very clean and they’re both happy boys.”
Brown also addressed the difference in race strategies, pointing to Piastri’s preference to race his teammate. He added:
“We were talking to Oscar on the radio on if he wanted to race Lando or Charles. He wanted to race Lando which was understandable.
“You just had two different strategies that converged and it couldn’t have been closer. Oscar was faster at the end and just couldn’t get by.
“Unlike Silverstone when Oscar was obviously disappointed he didn’t win, I think here he understands everyone gave it their best shot.”
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